After a little bit of a radio silence, an update from me again. The last few days I’ve tried to do as little as possible, which includes avoiding internet cafes. My last post was from Ubud, where I had great time seeing a bit more of the ‘real’ Bali. I have to admit that Ubud is still quite touristy, but thanks to Charlotte and Karin who I visited there I got to see and hear a bit more of how Balinese people live and think. I had a walk through the rice fields, visited the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, and enjoyed the good food. We also took a day to go to Waterboom, which is basically a water park (swimmingpools, slides, cocktail bars in the water etc :p). We went together with Arnold (the Indonesian guy I had met before), altogether a really fun day!
Going to Waterboom meant going to Kuta by scooter, which was my first experience driving in the crazy Indonesian traffic. Traffic feels fairly safe even though it seems quite chaotic. The next day I kept the scooter and visited two ancient sites close to Ubud (Gunung Gawi and another with a name along the lines of ‘Holy Water temple’, I forget). After a few great evenings of drinks and a closing night in the only ‘club’ of Ubud with Charlotte and Karin it was time to say goodbye. Next stop: Gili Air, which is where I am right now. I did a – not too spectacular – night dive here, but mostly lay in the sun or sat on the veranda practicing the ukulele. I ran into a Dutch girl here: it is funny to realize that I dont really feel like I need to avoid Dutch people as I haven’t been in the Netherlands myself for a while (Dutch people generally avoid other Dutch people while on vacation..). Anyway we did the diving together and checked out some of the restaurants here.
As I’m getting a bit restless because of all the staying in one place I’ll be heading out again tomorrow. I’ll be going to Java, with a stopover in Kuta. I might do a few more dives in the north west of Bali but then head to Jogjakarta.
I feel I’m writing a lot about what I’m doing and not so much about my impressions of the country and the culture. So in an attempt to write a bit more about that, already a few of my impressions of Indonesia so far:
- People are very religious in Bali: mainly Hindu (but quite different from Hinduism in India). I am especially impressed with how often people spend time going to the temple, holding ceremonies and especially making offerings. Some women spend the majority of their time making offerings.
- Indonesians strongly believe in ghosts, much different from how we look at it in the west. Some people even prefer not to be home alone to avoid coming in contact with ghosts.
- A waiter told me that The Netherlands (Belanda) is a very safe country: not because there are few earthquakes or other problems, but because there are no demons..
- Aside from Bali, Indonesia is mainly Islamic. The first I came in contact with this was last night, when I was woken by the call for prayer (I think) around 4am. It may also have been a special event given that it is full moon, and the Islams works with a moon calendar. Perhaps someone can tell me more about this?
Sorry, no pictures today: I forgot my cable so I’ll add a few extra next time.